I’ve just had a circular letter from the Women Grain Growers’ Association explaining their fight for community medical service and a system of itinerant rural nurses. They’re organized, and they’re in earnest, and I’m with them to the last ditch. They’re fighting for the things that this raw new country is most in need of. It will take us some time to catch up with the East. But the westerner’s a scrambler, once he’s started.
I can’t get away from the fact, since I know them both, that there’s a big gulf between the East and the West. It shouldn’t be there, of course, but that doesn’t seem to affect the issue. It’s the opposition of the New to the Old, of the Want-To-Bes to the Always-Has-Beens, of the young and unruly to the settled and sedate. We seem to want freedom, and they seem to prefer order. We want movement, and they want repose. We look more feverishly to the future, and they dwell more fondly on the past. They call us rough, and we try to get even by terming them effete. They accentuate form, and we remain satisfied with performance. We’re jealous of what they have and they’re jealous of what we intend to be. We’re even secretly envious of certain things peculiarly theirs which we openly deride. We’re jealous, at heart, of their leisure and their air of permanence, of their accomplishments and arts and books and music, of their buildings and parks and towns with the mellowing tone of time over them. And as soon as we make money enough, I notice, we slip into their neighborhood for a gulp or two at their fountains of culture. Some day, naturally, we’ll be more alike, and have more in common. The stronger colors will fade out of the newer fabric and we’ll merge into a more inoffensive monotone of respectability. Our Navajo-blanket audacities will tone down to wall-tapestry sedateness—but not too, too soon, I pray the gods!
Speaking of Navajo reminds me of Redskins, and Redskins take my thoughts straight back to Iroquois Annie, who day by day becomes sullener and stupider and more impossible. I can see positive dislike for my Dinkie in her eyes, and I’m at present applying zinc ointment to Pee-Wee’s chafed and scalded little body because of her neglect. I’ll ring-welt and quarter that breed yet, mark my words! As it is, there’s a constant cloud of worry over my heart when I’m away from the shack and my bairns are left behind. This same Ikkie, apparently, tried to scald poor old Bobs the other day, but Bobs dodged most of that steaming potato-water and decided to even up the ledger of ill-usage by giving her a well-placed nip on the hip. Ikkie now sits down with difficulty, and Bobs shows the white of his eye when she comes near him, which isn’t more often than Ikkie can help—And of such, in these troublous Ides of March, and April and May, is the kingdom of Chaddie McKail!
Tuesday the Second
I may as well begin at the beginning, I suppose, so as to get the whole thing straight. And it started with Whinstane Sandy, who broke the wheel off the spring-wagon and the third commandment at one and the same time. So I harnessed Slip-Along up to the buckboard, and put the Twins in their two little crow’s-nests and started out to help get my load out of that bogged trail, leaving Dinkie behind with Iroquois Annie.
There was a chill in the air and I was glad of my old coonskin coat. It was almost two hours before Whinnie and I got the spring-wagon out of its mud-bath, and the load on again, and a willow fence-post lashed under the drooping axle-end to sustain it on its journey back to Alabama Ranch. The sun was low, by this time, so I couldn’t wait for Whinnie and the team, but drove on ahead with the Twins.
I was glad to see the smoke going up from my lonely little shack-chimney, for I was mud-splashed and tired and hungry, and the thought of fire and home and supper gave me a comfy feeling just under the tip of the left ventricle. I suppose it was the long evening shadows and the chill of the air that made the shack look so unutterably lonely as I drove up to it. Or perhaps it was because I stared in vain for some sign of life. At any rate, I didn’t stop to unhitch Slip-Along, but gathered up my Twins and made for the door, and nearly stumbled on my nose over the broom-end boot-wiper which hadn’t proved such a boon as I’d expected.
I found Iroquois Annie in front of my home-made dressing-table mirror, with my last year’s summer hat on her head and a look of placid admiration on her face. The shack seemed very quiet. It seemed so disturbingly quiet that I even forgot about the hat.
“Where’s Dinkie?” I demanded, as I deposited the Twins in their swing-box.